Sound of Metal Page #3

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EXT. OFFICE COMPLEX – LATER

A bland suburban office park. The Protagonist gets out of thecar, wearing his hi-viz and carrying a clipboard. Headsinside, passing numerous STAFF coming out...

INT. LOBBY, OFFICE COMPLEX – CONTINUOUS

The Protagonist moves through the lobby unimpeded. Checkingthe tenant listings he sees – ‘WINDFARM TRANSITIONS – B-2’.

INT. CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS

The Protagonist walks up to B-2.

FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)

With a hi-viz vest and a clipboard,

you can get almost anywhere.

Almost.

The Protagonist turns to find a brusque young woman. This isBARBARA. He joins his hands, interlacing the fingers...

PROTAGONIST:

A pretty obscure tenet.

Using a key card, she ushers him through a door into –

INT. OFFICE, LABORATORY – CONTINUOUS

Barbara hands the Protagonist a cup of tea.

BARBARA:

No small talk, nothing that mightreveal who we are, or what we do.

PROTAGONIST:

I thought I was here to find outwhat we do.

BARBARA:

You’re not here for ‘what’, you’rehere for ‘how’. ‘What’ is yourdepartment. And not my business.

12.

PROTAGONIST:

Well, to do what I do, I need some

idea of the threat we face.

Barbara considers the Protagonist. Sips her tea.

BARBARA:

As I understand it, we’re trying toprevent World War Three.

PROTAGONIST:

Nuclear holocaust?

BARBARA:

No. Something worse.

INT. SHOOTING RANGE – MOMENTS LATER

Barbara hands the Protagonist a semi-automatic. Hereflexively checks the chamber and magazine – EMPTY.

BARBARA:

Aim it and pull the trigger.

The Protagonist SHRUGS, lifts the empty pistol, sights a

target 25m away with several holes in it...

He squeezes the trigger – BAM! – a shot. He is CONFUSED...

BARBARA (CONT'D)

Check the magazine.

The Protagonist checks the clip – THERE IS A ROUND IN IT.

PROTAGONIST:

How?

Barbara pulls on PROTECTIVE GLOVES and removes the round fromthe clip, placing it next to an identical one on a table.

BARBARA:

One of these bullets is, like us,

travelling forwards through time.

The other one’s going backwards.

Can you tell which is which?

The Protagonist shakes his head. Barbara reaches forward –

BARBARA (CONT'D)

How about now? –

One of the rounds FLIES UP INTO HER HAND, FALLING IN REVERSE.

The Protagonist is taken aback. Barbara holds the roundtowards him so he can inspect it –

13.

BARBARA (CONT'D)

It’s inverted – its entropy runsbackwards. So, to our eyes, itsmovement is reversed. We think it’s

a type of inverse radiation,

triggered by nuclear fission.

PROTAGONIST:

You didn’t make it?

BARBARA:

We don’t know how. Yet.

PROTAGONIST:

So where’d it come from?

BARBARA:

Someone’s manufacturing them in thefuture. They’re streaming back at

us.

Barbara places the round on the table, in front of a CAMERA.

BARBARA (CONT'D)

Try it.

He puts on a glove – moves his hand over it, nothing.

BARBARA (CONT'D)

You have to have dropped it.

The Protagonist reaches out again – it LEAPS UP INTO HISHAND.

PROTAGONIST:

How can it move before I touch it?

She cues up the recording of what he just did –

BARBARA:

From your point of view you caughtit, but from the bullet’s point ofview...

She plays it BACKWARDS –

BARBARA (CONT'D)

...you dropped it.

ON THE SCREEN:
the round FALLS from his hand.

PROTAGONIST:

But cause has to come before

effect.

BARBARA:

No. That’s just how we see time.

14.

She PULLS the round towards herself using one finger – theround follows her finger as if MAGNETIZED...

PROTAGONIST:

What about free will?

BARBARA:

That bullet wouldn’t have moved if

you hadn’t put your hand there.

Either way we run the tape, youmade it happen.

She LAUNCHES it up into her other hand –

BARBARA (CONT'D)

Don’t try to understand it. Feelit.

Barbara PLAYS with the round in increasingly IMPROBABLE,

BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENTS... The round SHOOTS AWAY FROM HER – the

Protagonist CATCHES IT...

PROTAGONIST:

Instinct. Got it.

Barbara smiles, swaps him the round for the pistol. She thenplaces a TRAY COVERED IN SHELL CASINGS beside him.

The Protagonist aims at the target – a shell casing LEAPSinto the gun – he FIRES, and a bullet hole near the bullseyeVANISHES –

PROTAGONIST (CONT'D)

Why does it feel so strange?

BARBARA:

You’re not shooting the bullet,

you’re catching it.

PROTAGONIST:

Whoa.

The Protagonist examines the target – no bullet holes.

PROTAGONIST (CONT'D)

I’ve seen this type of ammunitionbefore.

BARBARA:

In the field?

PROTAGONIST:

I was almost hit.

BARBARA:

Then you are exceedingly lucky...

The Protagonist turns to her...

15.

BARBARA (CONT'D)

An inverted bullet passing throughyour body would be devastating. Theinverse radiation would spreadthrough your body. Like poloniumpoisoning. Not pretty.

The Protagonist examines the rounds...

PROTAGONIST:

These look like today’s.

BARBARA:

They may have been made today, theninverted years from now.

PROTAGONIST:

Where did you get them?

BARBARA:

They came with the wall. I wasassigned it, like all the materialI’m studying here.

PROTAGONIST:

Do you have an analysis of themetals?

BARBARA:

Sure. Why?

PROTAGONIST:

The mixture of alloys can tell mewhere they might have been made.

Look, I know you said that ‘what’is my business –

BARBARA:

Let’s not go off-topic.

PROTAGONIST:

I’m not seeing Armageddon here.

Barbara takes the round from him, and beckons him to follow –

INT. ARCHIVE – CONTINUOUS

Between tall sets of DRAWERS...

BARBARA:

A bullet may not seem like much,

but it’s a simple machine – leadbullet, brass casing, gunpowder. Ifthey can invert this – I see noreason they couldn’t invert prettymuch anything. Even a nuclearweapon can only affect our future.

(MORE)

16.

BARBARA (CONT'D)

An inverted weapon might be able toaffect our past as well.

Barbara stops at a drawer. Gestures around herself –

BARBARA (CONT'D)

Now that we know what to look for,

we’re finding more and moreinverted material...

She opens a drawer, revealing a VARIETY OF RUSTED BITS ANDPIECES – SCREWS, CRACKED LENSES, METAL RODS, BUTTONS...

BARBARA (CONT'D)

...remnants of complex objects.

The Protagonist reaches out and lets a RUSTED BUCKLE leapinto his hand.

PROTAGONIST:

So what do you think we’re seeing?

BARBARA:

The detritus of a coming war.

The Protagonist looks around at the MULTITUDE of DRAWERS.

EXT. CROWDED STREET, MUMBAI – DAY

The Protagonist walks out of an electronics store, opening anew phone, and slips into the throng. He dials –

MALE VOICE:

(over phone)

Yup?

PROTAGONIST:

We live in a twilight world.

MALE VOICE:

(over phone)

No friends at dusk. I was told

you’d left the building.

PROTAGONIST:

Even the dead need allies.

MALE VOICE:

(over phone)

Specifically?

PROTAGONIST:

An assist in Mumbai. To get toSanjay Singh.

17.

MALE VOICE:

(over phone)

Singh? He never leaves his house,

and his house... well, it’s –

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